Christmas Dinner at the Wheatsheaf Hotel in Baslow
We came as a family of 8 for Christmas dinner and as always, when a retailer chooses to increase their prices to £83 for a dinner that would normally be £20, expectations are going to be high but we appreciated the fact the pub offered a Christmas Dinner.
Anyway, we were seated as we arrived and were told the waitess would be over to take care of us but no one came to take a drink order for the first 10 minutes after being seated so we got up and went to the bar and collected our own drinks.
After around being there for 20mins, our starter was brought out.
A mix of soup, Shallot Tart or Prawn and salmon cocktail and to be fair, it was all fine and if I'm perfectly honest, the prawn and salmon had around 3 times as much salmon on the plate as I expected to see. Probably way more than necessary, but we were off to a great start.
Then came the main which unfortunately was served almost immediately after the starter or within 5 minutes of finishing the starter which wasn't ideal but nothing we could do about that so although we then started feeling rushed, we tucked in.
The food on the main course was nothing short of a disaster. There is no way a real Chef would have allowed this food out of the kitchen.
The dinner was pre ordered by everyone but was served on the plate.
No gravy boat allowing you to put your own gravy on the plate, No dishes of veg to share on the table, we were just given a plate with just a slice of meat, roasted potato, parsnip, carrot, brussels, pig in blanket and a Yorkshire pud.
Half of us chose the Turkey and the others chose roast beef and almost all of it ended up in the doggy bag for the dog, it was just like eating my boot and every one of us just chose not to eat it. (The turkey however was fine).
The food in itself wasn't cold but certainly wasn't served hot and then there was the roasted potatoes, totally anemic and just not cooked enough, the roasted potatoes were just a total failure and looked dreadful.
We finished of with a dessert and that was ok too with no complaints.
We had been asked to vacate the table for 2pm but it was around 2.05pm before they even offered us a coffee and there was clearly another family stood staring at us who had clearly been told that our table was the one they were waiting for so only 2 of us ordered and rushed a coffee.
We did raise the issue of the totally inadequate quality of food with the staff and to be fair, the waitress came back and offered us a free drink to try and make it right but by this time, no one really wanted to stay and have a drink so the overall experience just wasn't great.
Not sure what happened in the kitchen and I'm guessing anyone who actually knew how to cook had taken the day off but the general presentation and the quality of the food was no better than a quick Wetherspoons or local café meal and not the type of food I would recommend to anyone. The starter and the dessert were fine but the main course was just Woeful.
Christmas dinners are always a gamble because expectations are always high and there's always a risk of not getting great food but this was a bet we placed and certainly came out worse off.
8 of us just threw £640 away today but we certainly wont go back and suggest you search elsewhere too.